Payday 3 Dev Looking Into Adding Offline Mode, Blames Third-Party for Matchmaking Woes

If Starbreeze themselves were actually a Payday 3 heisting team I suspect they'd be verging on putting money back into the vault at this stage - retracing their steps with bulging duffel bags, while apologising to security guards not so much for the whole bank robbery thing as for smashing so many utilities on their way out. Shortly after announcing plans to make the four-player PvE shooter less online-dependent, the developers have announced that they're also reworking Payday 3's much-reviled progression system.

was finally released on all current-gen consoles and PC — and was included as part of the main Xbox, PC, and Ultimate Game Pass tiers — on September 21, 2023. The title was highly anticipated by fans of the heist shooter series who had waited just over a decade since the release of its predecessor,, but unfortunately, it has suffered from one of the worst launches of the year so far. Developer Starbreeze Studios seems intent on turning things around, though, promising over 200 improvements are on the way.

Following a disastrous launch which led to Payday 3 nosediving to a Mostly Negative rating on Steam, developer Starbreeze has promised over 200 quality-of-life changes this month, as well as further improvements scheduled in a series of patches set to release throughout the rest of the year.

To say that Payday 3, Starbreeze’s long-awaited follow-up in the heist shooter series, had problems would be an understatement. Matchmaking issues, lackluster solo play that’s always online, the list goes on (check out our review for more details). Nevertheless, it has proven popular. The publisher announced 3,167,938 unique players for September 2023.

Starbreeze Studios has said that the issues that have been disrupting Payday 3 since the game launched have now been fixed.

Starbreeze has shared a new letter updating the public about the state of Payday 3.

After a disastrous launch that saw Payday 3 unplayable for many, developer Starbreeze has declared the matchmaking issues over, opening the door to a big update for October.

Payday 3 finally launched last month, more than six years after its initial reveal in 2017. We quite enjoyed it, and you can find out why in Game Informer's Payday 3 review. Despite our enjoyment, many players encountered severe matchmaking issues that made it tough to play the game given its always-online nature. Now, just under two weeks after the game's launch, developer Starbeeze Studios says the matchmaking issues are fixed. 

PayDay 3's matchmaking issues have been fixed, developer Starbreeze has announced.

The issues that plagued Payday 3 have now been fixed, according to developer Starbreeze.

This morning, Starbreeze provided another update on PAYDAY 3, the highly anticipated third installment in the cooperative first-person heist shooter game. Firstly, the Swedish studio said the matchmaking issues that plagued the game's launch were fixed thanks to a two-stage process. The matchmaking software was updated, and the infrastructure was upgraded with more regional nodes, improving redundancy across online services and increasing matchmaking speed in PAYDAY 3.

Multiplayer heist sim PAYDAY 3's launch has been anything but smooth, with massive numbers of players unable to access the game. Plagued by server and matchmaking issues, the always online nature of the title is exacerbating the situation still further.